Applied Cognitive Psychology - Leiden University (2019)

Lecture 7: Cognitive Psychology in the Courtroom

Stages Penal Case Law:

1. Facts

2. Evidence

3. Guilt

4. Verdict/sentence

Where does the psychologist come in?

The psychologist looks at the facts and analyzes to what extent the facts are reliable and can be considered as evidence. 

A psychologist cannot tell whether someone is or isn't guiltly 

Procedure:

1.There is an allegation, or a suspicion of guilt. 

2.The prosecutor looks for facts, interrogates people.

3. Police looks at facts, psychologist can help here. 

4. Prosecutor goes to the judge with evidence.

5. Judge decides with the jury whether suspect is guilty. The defense talks to the judge also

6. The psychologist can communicate with the prosecutor, the police,and  the defense.

7. Decision of guilt

Signal detection: 

2 types of error possible:

1. Jury decides suspect is guilty, while they aren't

2. Jury decides suspect is not guilty, while they are

What can we do?

Decide which type of error is worse.

Assumption of innocence: avoiding the 1st error.

- have to have enough evidence to prosecute someone

Eye witnesses

Sources of error:

• Poor memory performance
• Questions / Interrogation method
• Post event information 
• Causality

Misinformation effect: Incorporating misleading information into one's own memory of an event

Example: "How fast were the cars going when they bumped into each other?" vs "How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?" 

Post-information

Example: Adding "he died later that day" after seeing a man being pushed will lead to a different judgement than not knowing that information.

Line-ups:

People can be biased to think the perpetrator must be in the line-up, which psychologist try to avoid by making sure witnesses know that perpetrator might not be there

The portraits should fit the description

The crime scene should be simulated: go to the scene, and based on what the witness said try to redo the situation

Line-ups should be done quickly after the incident

Causality:

Causality is important in the courtroom

• Has to be assessed by the judge and jury 
• Related to responsibility / accountability
• Did the suspect not / partially / fully cause the fact?
• Relevance of fact for guilt decision

Causality can be ambiguous

• We don't know whether the effect is actually due to perceived cause
• Interpreted in hindsight
• Perception of causality subject to suggestion and manipulation.

Cues to causality (Einhorn & Hogarth, 1986)

• Precedence: cause precedes effect
• Contingency in time and space
• Congruency of cause and consequence: causes and effects are of similar kind
• Major‐event‐major‐cause heuristic: we assume the cause is similarly severe as the effect
• No alternative explanation available

Biases in perceived causality

Affective analysis precedes rational analysis (Zajonc, 1980)

• Example: Witnesses ‘see’ guilt (affective) before they ‘see’ the push (fact)

Memory of cause is adjusted to the impact of the effect (Remijn, 2004)

Victim’s testimony

The case of allegations of child abuse after divorce and disagreement about custody

Sources of error:

•  Victim’s testimony is only evidence

–-> often no other evidence

• Prior odds regarding false allegations of abuse

--> probability of allegations being false is quite high (no custody dispute: 8%, custody dispute:30%-50%), because a parent might make false alligations against the other parent to keep custody of the child

• Allegations are not always intentionally false: a parent who is living separately from the other parent and hears alarming things from the child, might assume the other parent is abusing the child. Therefore, they make the assumption of guilt, because they don't want to risk their child's well-being.

Psychological reliability assessment of children’s testimony:

Sources of error:

• Questions

• Misinterpreting answers

• Post event information

• Early affective analysis

Improving reliability of children’s testimony:

•Child friendly interview studio

•Videotaped

• Only interviewer and child present

• Good contact. Feels free to say “I don’t know”

-->Example: "do you know what domicile means? No? Good job for telling me!"

• Child first tells story without interruption

• Neutral – critical interviewer attitude

• Ask open questions

• Only facts; no interpretations

How to interpret the content of answers (Criteria Based Content Analysis CBCA ‐ method)

•Logically structured  ‐ / unstructured + (unstructured story is actually a cue for reliability)

• Number of details +. Unusual details + 

• Contextual embedding +

• Reproduction of speech ‐ (repeat what he/she has heard about the story)

• Self deprecation (feeling guilty) + (even though its not their fault, victims often feel guilty)

Criteria Based Content Analysis CBCA – a reliable method?

Not reliable! (Vrij, 2005): lots of cases where structured story was accurate and lots of details didn't mean reliability

Alternative content criterion for answers: Consistency over time and across multiple testimonies is a cue for reliability(Wagenaar, 2005)

Post event information

• Repeated questioning by parent, therapists, doctors

• Feedback from school; peers; sexual connotation

• Evaluative remarks (“Daddy should not do that”)

• Collaborative story telling

Early affective causal analysis

Child receives emotional feedback on his non‐ emotional information. Child associates his information with emotion of parent.

Psychological expertise in the courtroom: where things can go wrong

The judges question and the psychologists answer.

The psychologist is not supposed to give his/her opinion on whether someone is guilty or not. It would be "invading the province of court"
 

The separate goals of clinical therapy and cognitive psychology.

Clinical: focus on the well-being of the person

Cognitive: Gives experties about empirical factors affecting perception and memory

The media and the public opinion

Pressure to come up with a certain report in lign with public opinion.